Happy Mystery Monday! Can you guess what is pictured in photo #1?
The answer to last week’s mystery is The pink lady’s slipper, Cypripedium acaule, pictured in photo #2.
The pink lady’s slipper, Cypripedium acaule, also known as the moccasin flower, is one of North America’s most recognizable native orchids. A member of the Orchidaceae family, it is most often found growing in acidic soils beneath pine forests, conifers, and oak woodlands, where it may slowly spread into quiet colonies over time.
Blooming from April through June, each plant typically produces a single striking flower atop a slender stem. The blossom’s inflated pink pouch resembles a small slipper or moccasin, framed by green and maroon sepals. Though the flower appears inviting, it offers visiting insects no nectar. Instead, pollinators enter the pouch searching for food and must navigate their way out through a narrow rear exit, brushing past pollen structures that ensure pollination before escape.
Pink lady’s slippers are famously difficult to transplant because they depend on a specific Rhizoctonia fungus in the soil to germinate and survive. Their dust-like seeds can take years to establish, and some plants may remain dormant underground for nearly a decade before reappearing. Slow-growing and long-lived, these orchids may take up to ten years to flower and can survive for more than twenty years in the wild, making them a remarkable and delicate part of eastern forest ecosystems.
Mystery Monday is sponsored by the Spy Newspapers and Adkins Arboretum.
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